{"id":1488,"date":"2011-05-09T12:08:11","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T16:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=1488"},"modified":"2013-09-14T14:31:42","modified_gmt":"2013-09-14T18:31:42","slug":"ask-us-who-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=1488","title":{"rendered":"Ask Us Who We Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

Went to St. Johnsbury to see Bess O\u2019Brien\u2019s latest documentary Ask Us Who We Are<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s about foster kids and foster families.\u00a0 Powerful.\u00a0 Painful.\u00a0 Kids crying out \u201cHow could she not love me?\u201d Wrongful stereotypes \u2014 like it\u2019s the kid who was the problem not the parents.\u00a0 Mothers talking about how painful it was to give up their kids, but wanting the kid to have a better life.<\/p>\n

The film about foster children hit me harder than I expected.\u00a0 I was feeling sad & lonely yesterday too, but today there\u2019s the added component of the heavy weight of despair. Hearing the foster kids say things like \u201cHow could she give me away unless she didn\u2019t love me?\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s the worst pain there is \u2014 to be rejected by your parents,\u201d hit really hard.\u00a0 I felt slammed in the deepest wound of all, the feeling of not deserving to live.<\/p>\n

Most of the foster kids interviewed were teens or in their twenties. There were pictures of them as small children looking like anybody\u2019s kids, and then tales of drunken fathers who beat them up.\u00a0 There were two painful but wonderful stories of women who were addicted, and gave their children up because they wanted them to have better lives.\u00a0 In one case the woman did manage to get off drugs, but she knew she couldn\u2019t promise never to start using again.\u00a0 What happened was that she was able to make friends with the foster mother so she can still see her daughter.\u00a0 The other mother, who gave up her very young son, was thrown out by her abusive husband when she was pregnant again, and she knew if she kept using that it would be like killing the infant.\u00a0 So she got off drugs, made a life for herself, and got back her son.\u00a0 I was very much moved by how hard some parents are willing to work to be able to keep their children, to be good parents.<\/p>\n

My parents were alcoholics, and it never occurred to them that their drinking might be harming their children.\u00a0 As I think back I realize that neither of them ever gave up anything or worked hard at anything to be able to give us better lives.\u00a0 After I learned about alcoholic families, read books, participated in groups, I told my mother that I didn\u2019t come to see her more often because I was hurt by her drinking. She said, as nastily as possible, \u201cWell then you\u2019ll just have to hurt for a long time, won\u2019t you.\u201d Only after she died did I find Marshall Rosenberg\u2019s Non-Violent Communication<\/a>, and I realized what a fine skill it would have been.\u00a0 Of course telling her she hurt me would set off resistance.\u00a0 Instead of trying to convince her, I needed to find a way to speak my own truth.<\/p>\n

Some new learnings from the film: a foster mother said that foster parents shouldn\u2019t expect the kids to feel glad or relieved when they get to their new home.\u00a0 Their lives have just been turned upside down.\u00a0 They want to go back home where everything is familiar.\u00a0 The other thing I didn\u2019t know is that foster kids get harassed by their classmates.\u00a0 The stereotype is that the CHILDREN were bad, not that the parents were not treating the kids right.<\/p>\n

Sitting in my car outside the grocery store I suddenly realized that what I really wanted to do was gather them all up and bring them home with me.\u00a0 Of course, I know better.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have the skills or the energy to take on a troubled child.\u00a0 Although I probably understand better than most the anger and grief that they feel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Went to St. Johnsbury to see Bess O\u2019Brien\u2019s latest documentary Ask Us Who We Are.\u00a0 It\u2019s about foster kids and foster families.\u00a0 Powerful.\u00a0 Painful.\u00a0 Kids crying out \u201cHow could she not love me?\u201d Wrongful stereotypes \u2014 like it\u2019s the kid … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19,11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-interesting-link","category-present-day","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}